While the media has covered extensively Democratic successes in the 2025 off-year elections, there is one story that has been dramatically undercovered. This is the fact that the 2025 Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races show that Democrats can win over Trump voters. Granted, these are not dramatic slices of the Trump coalition, but they are enough in these hyper-polarized times to win elections.

According to CNN polling, in New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill in her race for governor was able to win 7% of those who had voted for Donald Trump in 2024. Interestingly, the Virginia exit polling data shows that Rep. Abigail Spanberger won the identical (7%) of Trump voters.The New York Times’ Nate Cohn is one of the few journalists who has pointed to the New Jersey and Virginia Democrats’ ability to win over Trump voters. He concludes that:

Instead, the two Democrats won so decisively because they also flipped a crucial sliver of voters who said they supported Mr. Trump in 2024. Ms. Sherrill and Ms. Spanberger both won 7 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters, according to the exit polls. It may not seem like much to flip 7 percent of Mr. Trump’s backers, but consider: When a voter flips, it adds one voter to one party and also deducts one from the other, making it twice as significant as turning out a new voter.

Looking at the exit polling data makes it clear that while the Democrats margins in New Jersey and Virginia were helped by increased Democratic turnout, winning over 2024 Trump voters was critically important.

One of the key parts of the Trump coalition has always been strong and even almost overwhelming support from rural voters. An analysis by Politico of the Virginia gubernatorial race shows that:

Spanberger’s victory was largely driven by massive turnout in northern and eastern Virginia’s urban areas. But she picked up support across the state’s deep-red central and western counties, where Trump’s tariffs have hit the manufacturing and agricultural industries especially hard. Even as her GOP opponent won most of those places, Spanberger posed the best performance by a statewide Democratic candidate in several cycles, according to a POLITICO analysis of voting data in the localities classified as “rural” by the federal government.

To her great credit, Spanberger targeted rural voters and consistently hammered away on how the Trump administration’s tariff policies were hurting them. In comparison with former Vice President Kamala Harris’s performance in 2024, Spanberger outperformed Harris’ margin in 48 of Virginia’s 52 rural localities. The exit polling shows that Spanberger won 46% of rural voters—an eight-point deficit to Republican candidate Lieutenant Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, and a 19-point swing from 2021 gubernatorial Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s 27-point disadvantage.

There is also data in the exit polling data indicating that Democrats won back in 2025 Hispanic voters who backed Trump in 2024. The Washington Post reports:

This year, most Democratic statewide candidates won Latino voters by at least 30 points in exit polls, re-creating the margins their party held before 2024. In New Jersey, 18 percent of Latino voters who backed Trump last year cast their ballot for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, exit poll data showed.

The fact that Democrats won over Trump voters in 2025 has profound implications for Democrats in both the 2026 midterms and the 2028. The message is clear: Some Trump voters will back Democrats if the candidates reach them where they are and talk to them about the issues that they care about most. To assume that all Trump voters are absolutely committed to Trump no matter what the circumstances is a mistaken assumption that only hurts Democrats. Successful politics is always about addition.

Hopefully, Democrats learn from their success in 2025 and realize that they can make some Trump voters part of their winning coalition.

Over the summer, GOP members of Congress and the Trump administration—particularly President Donald Trump—will try to sell the American people on his “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB). One of the claims that will be made is that the legislation ends taxes on Social Security. Ending taxation of Social Security benefits was one of the major campaign promises made by Trump when he was campaigning for reelection.

Contrary to claims made by the White House, the president himself, and GOP members of Congress, the OBBB does not end taxation of Social Security. As MSNBC reporting points out, it is procedurally impossible to enact changes in Social Security through the process of reconciliation:

First and foremost, the idea that the megabill (OBBB) eliminates federal taxes on Social Security—a claim Trump has made repeatedly of late—is plainly false. In fact, congressional Republicans relied on the budget reconciliation process to advance the package, and it’s procedurally impossible to change Social Security through this complex process.

Take a moment to let this fact register with you. It is impossible to enact the kind of Social Security changes that the President Trump and his supporters claim.

So, how did misinformation about the impact of the OBBB on Social Security get started? Well, not surprisingly it starts with the White House. A White House press release on July 1 boldly proclaims that “No Tax on Social Security is a Reality in the One Big Beautiful Bill.” The White House disinformation campaign on Social Security went to an unprecedented level when the Social Security Administration (SSA) sent out misinformation on the elimination of taxes on Social Security in the OBBB. As The Washington Post points out:

The Social Security Administration sent an email to millions of Americans soon after the passage of OBBB saying that the landmark legislation “delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans” and includes “a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples.”

So, how does the OBBB impact Social Security? Tara Siegel Bernard, of The New York Times, points out what the OBB does is to establish an enhanced tax deduction that will help reduce a household’s annual income, including Social Security. Furthermore, as Bernard points out, “Nor will the extra deduction benefit all Social Security recipients. Retirees who are 62 through 64 are ineligible.”

While Bernard and MSNBC’s coverage of this issue have been outstanding, much of the rest of the mainstream media has been disappointing on a couple of levels. First, the mainstream media has not condemned in clear terms the Trump administration’s politicalization of SSA’s communications with Social Security beneficiaries. Can you imagine the uproar you would hear had President Barack Obama done something similar?

The mainstream media is either too afraid to criticize the Trump administration or too lazy to try and understand the impact of the OBBB on Social Security, which amounts to millions of dollars of Americans’ earned benefits.

Another thing that almost all of the mainstream media is missing is that the OBBB weakens Social Security’s finances and makes the program’s fiscal challenges even more severe. The logic here is easy enough to follow: If you cut the money going into the Social Security trust funds, you weaken the program and push up the date of insolvency for the trust funds.

So, not only is the Trump administration misrepresenting what the OBBB does on the taxation of Social Security benefits, they are not telling you and me that they are weakening Social Security’s ability to pay out full benefits in the near term.

We are not powerless here. Each of us has the ability raise this issue with our members of Congress and with the media. Our answer to Trump’s false claim that the OBBB eliminates taxes is to simply tell the truth—instead of eliminating taxes on Social Security, the OBBB weakens Social Security’s ability to pay full benefits for current and future beneficiaries. Remember, as George Orwell pointed out: “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

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